Along the river and toward the mountains a morning shadow shimmers across the road. The rays of the first light jet through the trees and across a figure gliding upon the road. His breath trails in short spurts, petrified as it hits the icy air. All is quiet except the slight sound of the athlete as he summons himself for yet another days work. Soon the rest of the world will bustle with life as well and the brief simplicity of cyclist and nature will disappear into the everyday struggle of life in full motion; the errands and intervals, the appointments and intersections, and the deadlines and finish lines OutPaceTheRace

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Training Camp

Julian, CAWednesday, January 17, 2007

Today was a rather splendid one. We rolled out at 10 for a hard ~5 hour ride. We took a new route that had us on a lesser road for a change. Your guess is as good as mine as to the reason for building a little winding road through little valleys and over HUGE mountains. It was more a “system of roads” than just one road, ‘cause each little road led to a handful of the same. Allen, of course, was sporting a gps in the team’s argyle BMW (yes, the team will have argyle uniforms this year), making the going quite simplistic. Half the time we were quite sure that the little road was going to turn to dirt, but no… It hit this climb up the backside of Mount Laguna, and pitched up ~20-25%...! It was possibly the hardest stretch of sustained steepness that I’ve ever ascended, and I didn’t feel exceptionally worthy at the time.The ride culminated at 4.5 hours and, for me, 3110 kjs.